


Policy of Truth

by deerna



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch Era, Blow Jobs, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Cunnilingus, Dysfunctional Relationships, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, PTSD, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Shower Sex, Slight Canon Divergence, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Male Character, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, body image issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 06:44:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17441909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deerna/pseuds/deerna
Summary: Certain Genji's issues come into the open and Gabriel is made aware of them.Things aren't that simple.Control has always been his job; to create choices where none were available, to keep his sleeves full of aces when they were dealt a bad hand, to capture pieces when the enemy started crawling too close across the board— Gabriel was always meant to be the Queen of this game of chess.





	1. Too Late To Change The Events

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for so long it's almost a relief to be able to finally post it! 
> 
> Huge thanks to the Blackwatch Big Bang admins for organizing this, and to my artists [collophora](https://twitter.com/collophora) & [tiramisun](https://twitter.com/MattsonCunther) for the amazing collab!
> 
> Title & Chapter Titles from 'Policy of Truth' by Depeche Mode.
> 
>  
> 
> [Art by Collophora](http://collophora.tumblr.com/post/182066388821/and-isnt-it-something-seeing-it-on-his-mouth)

`From: Jesse McCree (ID 3945_45)`  
`To: Gabriel Reyes (ID 4568_15)`  
`Subject: hey boss`

`> i just sent the report from todays mission to your inbox`  
`> nothing out of place we were in and out in no time just like you said`  
`> except for one thing`  
`> i think genji tried to kill himself while we were in the field`  
`> thats not in the report btw`  
`> i wasnt sure if it was wise to put it in all official like`  
`> nothing really happened but`  
`> got any tips?`

Gabriel looks at the words on the glossy surface of his desk but he’s not reading them anymore. He’s re-read them so many times he’s basically memorized them by now. McCree sent the mail a few hours ago, and Gabriel just couldn’t keep going through the pile of paperwork after that.

It’s not the first time he’s informed of suicidal behaviour among his units. It comes with the job. He’s been a soldier, he’s been at war, he’s the head of a shadow operation for the biggest paramilitary organization in the world; he’s been dealing with trauma and stress himself. Suicide ideation is just another item on the list of things that keep him awake at night.

But that kind of message usually has doctor Ziegler’s ID number on it. Reading those words from McCree- something about the informality of it knocks the wind out of him. For all his cockiness, Jesse rarely breaks protocol. It’s especially out of character that he did so in such a delicate occasion.

Gabriel has never pretended that his men are the picture of mental health (he’s a bit too high on the paranoid spectrum himself to be fit for the position these days, really, but nobody needs to know that), but he always makes sure with medical that they’re at the very least fit for duty. That McCree has gone out of his way to assure that Gabriel knew about this before Mercy did- it speaks volumes of Shimada’s mental place at the moment.

The automatic door opens and closes with a soft hiss as Genji enters the office, pulling Gabriel out of his musings.

“Shimada,” he drawls, swiping the mail away from the table and spinning the chair towards him so that the desk is at his back.

Genji stops to stand in a relaxed slouch a few steps away, clad in what Gabriel mentally has dubbed his ‘off-duty armor’: a pair of Blackwatch-issued sweats and a ratty zipped sweatshirt with the hood pulled on. His usual metallic muzzle-like faceplate has been swapped out for a black pollution mask that covers his nose and the lower part of his face. Even though he’s been addressed, he’s staring somewhere over Gabriel’s shoulder, defiant and vaguely bored, apparently looking at the pictures floating on the wallscreen—random snapshots from Gabriel’s personal life swimming in the gentle light grey of his off-hours background settings—but his eyes are unfocused and distant.

“Do you know why you’re here?” Gabriel asks.

The ninja’s eyes move onto him. He’s carefully, uncharacteristically blank; there’s none of the usual, open anger he usually stares down people with, a clear warning to steer clear, or else. “No, commander,” he answers and he cocks a shoulder, a rude shrug in place of proper military etiquette, screaming _I don’t know, and I don’t care_. His forcibly relaxed stance—slumped shoulders, hands in his pockets, his whole body canted away from the door—tells another story entirely.

“You know, I’d love to say that you’re in trouble, just to see what you would do,” Gabriel says, tone light and joking. “But you’re not.”

And that’s probably one of the worst things about the whole ordeal, for Gabriel.

He’s really started to like Shimada as an agent, in the few months he’s been under his command; the ninja is impatient and a bit restless, but he follows order with efficiency and without ever questioning his directive, unless he has actual, practical concerns about them; he doesn’t beat around the bush, can hold himself in a fight under different circumstances and he was smart. He has no problems saying that Shimada is one of his best agents.

Smart as a whip, quick on his feet, physically _and_ metaphorically, and virtually always available—Gabriel had promoted him to _de facto_ member of his personal strike team in no time at all; his left hand where McCree stands at his right.

It’s unacceptable that Gabriel missed the signs that something was wrong with Shimada (or well, more wrong than usual; Shimada has been declared fit for active duty by the skin of his teeth, given his situation). He’s the one who made a mistake, and now he’s going to fix it.

“McCree left me a note with his report, today. I’d like you to tell me more about it.”

A subtle tension runs through Shimada’s body. “ _Nothing_ happened.”

Gabriel cocks his head to the side. He didn’t expect him to show his hand that soon, that sloppily. “How peculiar that you seem to know what I was referring to.” He can almost see the grimace on the ninja’s face and the way he’s gritting his teeth at his own careless slip from the clench of his jaw, the tense twitching in his cheekbone. “Well, tell me about this _nothing_ you speak of, since you seem to be already very well informed.”

“If it’s not in the report, it doesn’t exist,” Shimada quotes at him, fixing the mask higher on his nose. The words are a well rehearsed refrain that Gabriel himself used before; sometimes what Jack doesn’t know, doesn’t hurt Overwatch. “You’re wasting time. I don’t have anything to tell you.”

“It’s true. You don’t _have_ to tell me anything,” Gabriel concedes, straightening up in his chair and reaching over the desk to pull back up Jesse’s email. “But, just so you know, doctor Ziegler might find the content of this particular note very, ah, _interesting_. I could just forward it to her, and it would be her problem to deal with.” At the doctor’s name, Shimada immediately abandons every pretense of relaxation, his poorly concealed tension flaring up in full force. His eyes quickly skim along the mail and then he looks up again, glaring at Gabriel.

“She’ll ask for a psych eval, you will fail, and you’ll get benched until who knows when,” he lists off, counting off his fingers and stapling them together afterwards. “So, what do we do?”

It’s a dirty move, but Gabriel hasn’t gotten so good at his job playing by the rules.

A tense silence fills the room for a beat before Shimada decides to speak.

“What do you want me to say?” His voice is a low, cautious growl and his body is coiled with danger and anger, left hand tightened in a fist by his side, the fingers of the other one twitching like they do when he calls up his shurikens before a fight.

Gabriel stares him down, unafraid. “The truth would be a good start—”

He’s barely finished the sentence when Shimada bursts into laughter. It’s a loud, synthetic-sounding cackle, ugly and empty, startlingly different from his usual rare dry and bitter half-chuckle, and it sets off all kind of alarms in Gabriel’s instincts.

He raises an eyebrow at him, feigning unimpressed indifference even though all his body wants to do his to twitch. “What’s so funny?”

“You’re asking me the truth? Why don’t you _dare_ me instead, commander, since you like playing so much?” Shimada rolls his flesh shoulder and shakes his feet out, idly stretching, a routine that Gabriel has witnessed a thousands times before missions. “That’s the game, isn’t it?”

 _Truth or dare_. Gabriel scoffs, incredulous. “You think this is a joke?”

The ninja, curiously, seems to consider it. “A game is not a joke,” he enunciates carefully. “You’re always playing games, so play with me.”

Gabriel’s jaw slackens for a beat of stunned silence, before he snaps it shut.

“Ha. Fair enough,” he finds himself huffing, amused and impressed despite Shimada’s insubordination. He rarely pulls rank or plays tricks on his agents, unless he wants to get at something or he’s testing them, and when he does most of them lack the guts or the brains to call him out on it.

To be fair, he didn’t mean to test Shimada, this time; he just wanted him to volunteer the information instead of ordering him to cough it up. But Shimada had pushed back, and Gabriel couldn’t help but feel intrigued; it secretly pleased him to have a strike team made of people that could be pushed around a little without falling over themselves. It’s probably going to bite him in the ass someday (hell, Jesse has basically made a _career_ out of sassing him, so maybe it was a little late for that), but now that he’s started to push, he wants to see what happens if he starts _shoving._

“Alright,” he says, standing up, pushing the chair out of the way, leaning back against the desk, hands casually laying on the edge of the surface. Opening his body language, to show the ninja that he wasn’t walking on thin ice because of his behaviour. _Rewarding_. “You wanna play? Let’s play. You know the rules, I assume?”

A friendly-sounding question. A _loaded_ question.

Shimada doesn't fall for it. “I played with McCree before,” he says, arms crossed before his chest but chin held high. The game has already started. “Truth or dare. We ask in turns. If you chicken out, you lose.”

“Sounds fun.” Gabriel crosses his calves, gives him a winning smile. “What do I win?”

Shimada doesn’t give an inch. “If I win you drop the whole accident. McCree never sent you notes, you never called me to your office. This never happened. You leave me alone.”

Gabriel crosses his arms, mirroring him. “Deal. If you lose, you’ll tell Mercy yourself and you’ll follow her directions.” He tuts when he sees Shimada’s muscle around his cheekbone twitch again and points a finger at him. “These are my conditions. If you don’t like them, you’re welcome to leave and face the consequences.”

“Fine,” Shimada mutters. “You start”

“Truth or dare?”

“ _Dare,”_ he snaps and squares his shoulders like he’s expecting a full body tackle.

Even though they’re just ‘playing a game’ Shimada is sure taking it seriously. Too bad Gabriel isn’t planning on drawing this thing out very long.

“Take the mask off,” he says, in the most casual tone he can muster. The ninja never fails to cover his face whenever he was in public; he has to wear the bulky, metallic faceplate and headpiece whenever he’s on a mission or needs to join a particularly demanding training session, but he always covers the lower part of his face and the top of his head and forehead in his down time, too. The variety of scarves and masks that he used were the only item of clothing that Shimada ever bothers to take care of without external prompting.

Gabriel observes, waiting Shimada’s next move. The tension in his body has shifted; he looked ready to attack earlier, like before a mission, but he seems to retreat in his shell now, the cocky and defiant attitude quickly deflating; a confident predator turned into a panicking, cornered prey. He seems caught between fight and fawn, as he stares back, accusing and humiliated.

The point of the exercise isn’t humiliation. Gabriel already knows what the ninja looks like under the mask — from the rescue mission itself and from the medical files he has to review from time to time — but he's never seen him vulnerable. Deliberately forcing him to expose a weak point is an aggressive attempt at gaining the upper hand (and also a dick move) but the stakes are pretty high and Gabriel doesn't feel guilty about establishing a high price for victory, too.

For a moment Shimada seems ready to tap out, eyes closed, his left hand fisted into the fabric of his hoodie, the quiet sound of his controlled breathing the only sound in the room; but then he very slowly puts his trembling right hand over the mask, metallic digits curling gently around its shape, and pulls it off in a quick movement.

  
by [collophora](http://collophora.tumblr.com/post/182066388821/and-isnt-it-something-seeing-it-on-his-mouth).

“Work hard, play harder,” he croaks, cracking lips forming carefully around the words, sounding once again like he's quoting something. He runs his tongue over the thin whitish line of a scar on his upper lip and looks up at Gabriel, giving him a small, a little uncertain smirk—and isn't it something, seeing it on his mouth for once, instead of having to guess it from the crinkles around his eyes?

Considering how shaken and on edge he’s seen him earlier, Gabriel is pretty impressed. “Smug doesn’t look pretty on you, Shimada. Tone it down a notch,” he teases him, a compliment and a scolding rolled together in a single sentence.

Shimada shrugs. “Nothing looks pretty on me anymore, _commander_.”

The self-conscious bitterness, even hidden behind the playful smugness, makes something deep in Gabriel _ache_. Shimada’s face might be ruined beyond repair—he's missing his whole lower jaw and half of his nose, both replaced by some kind of dark, matte polymer that reminds Gabriel of the capped stumps he's seen on comrades’ limbs during the war before they got fitted with prosthetics, and there are so many scars he’s not sure he can count them all at a glance— but whatever is left of his features has been knitted back with care and attention. Despite being used to hiding them behind a mask, Shimada sports them with dignity; he looks fierce, strong despite being broken, and _smug_ as hell. It’s not Gabriel’s place to tell him that, though.

“I believe it is my turn.”

“You earned it,” Gabriel concedes. “I obviously cannot risk to be asked to reveal classified information, so I’m gonna have to pick _dare_ too. Hope you're not too disappointed.”

Shimada scoffs. “I didn't hope for that much. I want to win, not to break the bank.”

Gabriel chuckles. “Okay enough with the sass, get on with it. Also, sit your ass down, I’m sick of seeing you standing.”

Completely ignoring the free chair, the ninja hops on the desk, landing on the balls of his feet without a sound despite his metallic toes, and sits down, cross-legged. Gabriel blinks at him, unimpressed, but Shimada is ignoring him, thinking hard on his task, licking at the scar on his lip again.

Despite everything, Gabriel’s palms were prickling with anticipation.

God help him, he was actually having _fun_.

“I dare you to call me by my name,” Shimada says, finally.

“What?” Gabriel raises an eyebrow at him, confused, trying to get the joke behind Shimada’s words, but the ninja’s face is as unreadable as his mask was—maybe more, since he's probably doing more effort at keeping himself from emoting than usual.

The ninja just stared at him, calm and expecting.

“Seriously? That's not even a _dare_.”

Shimada shrugged. “You never call me Genji, though.”

“Does it bother you? ‘Shimada’ is your callname. It’s on your file and everything.”

“I dare you to change my callname to ‘Genji’, then.”

“That's not a dare either, that's _paperwork_.” It comes out as a petulant whine, but Gabriel doesn’t care. He just gave him the power of forcing his owns commanding officer into some painfully dumb task and that’s all Shimada came up with? He feels a little disappointed. “If I wanted more paperwork I could’ve called Morrison, the Lord knows he would’ve been only happy to obli-”

“As a rule, you don’t negotiate the task you were given,” Shimada interrupts him in a startingly clipped tone. “Do it or you lose.”

Gabriel glances at the ninja and he finds him staring back. He doesn’t look _upset_ , but he doesn’t look as playfully smug as he was earlier. There’s something _else_ behind the neutral mask of his schooled expression, but Gabriel can’t tell what it is beyond the unnerving, familiar intensity of his gaze.

Besides, the ninja had a point. “Okay, that’s fair. I’ll call you Genji from now on.” It feels unfamiliar on his tongue, since he never really called him that unless he was saying his full name—which proved the ninja’s point, he guessed. “I’ll also put a memo to get your paperwork fixed,” he adds, tapping on the desk to set it up. “Done. Did I pass?”

“Barely.” The neutral mask of Shimada—no, _Genji’s_ expression gets splitted by a shit-eating grin. “But I look forward to seeing McCree's face next time you’re gonna call me that on the field.”

Gabriel frowns. “What does Jesse have to do with—” and then it clicks. “This is about one of your dumbass bets, isn’t it?”

The smile on Genji’s face is so large and crooked it’s stretching all his scars. “I cannot deny nor confirm, commander. Gambling is banned on base.”

“You’re a weasel,” Gabriel chides him, shaking his head at him.

“To be honest, I was also thinking that my name is pretty famous in certain circles. My existence is supposed to be a well-guarded secret—it didn’t seem wise to keep using ‘Shimada’ as an official tag. Ares’ security is very good, but comms can be hacked.”

“I assumed you had picked it yourself,” Gabriel comments, scratching his goatee thoughtfully. “But I guess Overwatch had something better to do than giving you a say on the matter.” If Genji were one of his—but he isn't. He’s a loan from Overwatch, working with them only because he can’t show his face to the public and to the media. The blue coats are too fond of their press conferences to keep an agent that cannot be paraded around like a show pony.

“Not really. Anyway, I prefer ‘Genji’.” He snorts, a small sound of static. “McCree won’t have any reason to brag about first name basis privileges anymore.”

Gabriel wants to point out that Jesse doesn't have anything to brag about, since his callname is still ‘McCree’, but he's too stunned; it’s maybe the first time the ninja ever shares details of his personality like that in Gabriel's presence, and he’s not quite sure what to make of it. Seeing him so relaxed clashes with the idea of Genji trying to kill himself during a mission. There’s something else, there.

Time to cut to the chase.

“You’re scoring a lot of good points, but in the wrong court,” Gabriel says. “You’re not winning yet, so don’t get too comfortable. Is it my turn, yet?”

“Dare.”

“Well, that was quick, are you sure?” Keep a light tone, teasing and playful. Make a show of buying a little time. Let him drop his guard. Be outrageous about it. “You didn’t look too eager to lose the mask, but maybe you’re expecting me to have you take off your clothes next, Shimada?” He shakes his head. “Sorry, _Genji_ —anyway, this isn't a strip club.”

“Your game is starting to sound like a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen, commander.” Once again, Genji's tongue darts out to lick at the scar on his lip. A nervous habit, for sure. He blinks slowly, like a cat, but his smile looks a little stiff. “Out with it.”

“Okay, then,” Gabriel says. “I dare you to tell me what happened during the mission.”

Just like that, the playful mood shatters. Genji's expression darkens.

“That's cheating.”

“No, it’s not. The rules said, and I quote, ‘we ask in turns. If you chicken out, you lose’. There were no other specifications—I already allowed you an untimely correction earlier with the negotiation thing—therefore, I am not cheating and if you don't do what I ask you’re going to lose.”

“I should’ve known you weren’t going to play this straight,” Genji mutters, pulling both legs close to his chest. He wraps both arms around them, curling up in a tight, morose crouch. “You never do.”

“It’s my job.” Gabriel shrugs. “Exploit loopholes at the right moment. You were sloppy, and now you reap what you sow.”

Genji twitches, staring angrily at him.

Gabriel sighs and sits on the desk. “Just give in, kid. You're stuck between a rock and a hard place. You either tell me or you tell Angela.” He pitches his voice lower, comforting. He’s too harsh to play the ‘good cop’ on a regular basis, but he can be coaxing when he wants. “Just spit it out and be done with it.”

Genji is smart; he knows where the lesser evil was, and Gabriel fully expects him to take the right choice. The stubborn silence doesn’t last long; Genji soon deflates, shoulders slumping, head buried between his knees.

“There was a mirror in the warehouse,” he says in a croak, his voice a broken whisper. Another pause stretches on uncomfortably before he keeps going, “I didn’t— I saw— it wasn't— I saw myself.”

Well, fuck. “What happened then?”

“A guard turned the corner—he saw me, he shot at me. I couldn't move— I guess Jesse— McCree saw the blood— he saw me hesitate,” he drones on. “I deflected the bullet but I— I hesitated.”

Gabriel rubs a hand down his face. Stubble scratches at his palm, grounding, while memories of a lifetime ago sneak in his mind—the smell of waste and vomit, the rough sting of a seam that felt tighter than the day before, incoherent prayers in the face of death and death wishes, a split second of hesitation before blinking red lights—

“I couldn’t speak afterwards— I couldn't explain—”

“Has this happened before?” Gabriel interrupts him, quietly.

“No. It was an accident, I wasn't— I wasn't trying to kill myself, I just don’t like mirrors.” A hard click in his throat as he swallows. “I _wasn’t_ —”

“I believe you,” Gabriel says, because he knows—the stubbornness crawling up from the depths of his skin to fight a losing battle against the helplessness and the paralysis, tethering on the edge between self-destruction and survival, the _smoke—_

Genji looks up, the picture of resignation. “Are you going to tell doctor Ziegler?”

He probably should, but— well. Gabriel maybe is a psychopath (he never wants to get himself tested, _ever_ ), but he isn't a hypocrite. Not always.

“No,” he says. “Let’s call it a draw.”

He reaches out and gingerly puts a hand on Genji's shoulder. He expects him to flinch away, but the kid actually leans in the touch a little, like a cat seeking comfort. He's warm, too warm for a normal human being—he’s supposed to run a little hot because of his biomechanical enhancements, Gabriel remembers from his file.

“I promise I won't tell anything to medical, but I’m not dropping the ball, either. I’ll let you rest for now, but I want you to know that you can count on me if you ever feel— off balance again. I won't involve Angela unless I deem it necessary, but I want you to talk to me. I expect you to come to me if you need help. Are we clear?” He jostles him a little, and Genji nods. “Good. You’re dismissed.”

“Thank you, commander,” Genji whispers without looking at him. His voice sounds wet and rich of some unnamed emotion, but the ninja is off the desk and out of the room before Gabriel can stop him or ask him if he's okay.

Gabriel sighs and stands from the desk to sink back in his chair, pulling up the papers for the callname change, wondering if by not telling Angela he's doing a favour to Genji or to himself.


	2. Delivering the Proof

I.

His hand trembles around the gun. Bile tastes acrid on his tongue. Gabriel swears he can hear the pellets rattle inside their shells inside the barrel of the shotgun— but maybe it’s just his imagination. He shakes his head, puts the gun back in its case with her twin and shoves the box back under his seat.

He needs to focus. He’s on a mission.

It’s barely recog, something he wouldn’t usually have bothered to dispatch a team for, but Jack asked, with the implication that nobody should’ve been in the area at all, so of course Gabriel is going to take a look with Jesse and Genji in tow.

“Look at the three of us, back on the field together like ol’ times,” Jesse drawls at his right, busy checking over his equipment. He reloads his revolver and puts it back in its holster, spinning it by the trigger guard like the show off he is. “I’d like to believe that you missed us, but I know that this is another of those personal favors for Morrison...”

Gabriel grits his teeth. “ _This_ is me doing my job.”

It’s not a lie. It’s not the truth, either. He could’ve sent the boys by themselves—fuck knew they faced by themselves more dangerous missions than that one on a daily basis—but Gabriel needed the distraction. Since the last round of injections, the sickness has grown worse; too often dark phlegm builds up in his lungs, sensation disappears from his limbs from time to time, and the walls feels like they’re closing up around him, leaving him dizzy and disoriented...

The further Moira goes with her experiments, the fainter Gabriel’s grasp on reality feels. She swears that whatever she’s doing is working, preventing his serum from misfiring, exploiting the collateral effect in productive ways—but Gabriel needs something familiar, something to ground him, to remind him that he’s still flesh and blood and adrenaline, and not a string of data on a printout.

“Occasionally I like shooting at things, instead of gathering dust and spiderwebs behind a fucking desk. Do you have something against it?”

Jesse raises his hands, sprawling back in his seat. “Whoa, aren’t we jumpy. I’m just doin’ conversation. To be fair, I actually wanted to ask you something.” He pulls at the brim of that stupid hat of his, lowering it on his brow. His voice is low and his tone conspiratorial when he speaks again. “I thought you were benching Shimada, after the shit he pulled last week?”

Gabriel glances at Genji, curled on his seat opposite to them. The ninja counts off a few shurikens with jittery fingers before sliding them up the hidden compartment in his right arm. He’s probably eavesdropping, but he’s also pretending he isn’t.

“Nothing happened. If it’s not in the report, it doesn’t exist,” Gabriel reminds Jesse.

The cowboy’s eyes go wide and flashing with indignation, his unlit cigarillo threatening to escape the corner of his slackened mouth. Gabriel talks over him before he can tell him off. “You don’t need to worry about him. I have this under control.”

“I don’t know what bullshit he fed you, but I know what I saw, Gabriel,” Jesse growls, pitched low and dangerous.

Genji slightly ducks his head, turning away. Definitely eavesdropping, then. Something about the movement reminds Gabriel of the pitiful way he had leaned in his touch, so uncharacteristically affectionate of him.

“It’s my call,” he says, final. “Stop getting distracted and focus on the mission. We’ve got a job to do.”

“Aye, aye, commander,” Jesse mutters, chewing on his cigarillo and tightening his seatbelt with an unconvinced frown.

II.

Genji sits down next to Gabriel without a word, just a napkin on his empty tray. He leans back against the wall, eyes closed and expression pinched. He looks paler than usual, the black cloth mask covering his mouth in starker contrast with his clammy skin, and the bulk of his usual hoodie does nothing to hide the stiff line of his shoulders. His hair is slightly damp, but it’s hard to tell if it’s water or sweat; the ninja never smells like anything, even to Gabriel’s nose. 

Gabriel scrapes the last few spoonfuls of stew from the bottom of his bowl and watches him out of the corner of his eye, wondering if he should say something. He rarely sees Genji in the cafeteria; he can’t be there to eat, since his digestive system doesn't process much besides water and the simple nutrients supplied through specially formulated shakes, so there has to be some other reason. Although, Gabriel has the feeling that if he tried to express his concern in too direct a way, Genji would simply stand and walk away. 

“Couldn’t bother to conceal your presence, today?” is what he decides to go for, tired of this waiting game. He puts the spoon down and wipes his mouth with a napkin, before taking a sip of sludge-like lukewarm coffee.

Genji shrugs, his pained frown deepening. He briefly opens his eyes and glances up at him. “It’s not like you haven’t been sensing me all week, anyway.” 

“Don’t take it personally. It’s hard to sneak around me and Morrison.” Gabriel has been wondering about that, actually. He didn’t expect Genji to admit that he _has_ been following him around.

He watches as Genji’s eyes focused on a spot on the empty tray, as he takes a breath in and out, very slowly. He keeps controlling his breathing, as if going any quicker could bring tragic consequences around, almost as if—

Oh. Considering how often Gabriel has been emptying his guts in the toilet lately, he’s a little ashamed he hasn’t recognized the signs of barely controlled nausea sooner. “Are you alright?”

Dumb question. “I’m fine,” Genji answers, a little too quickly, then presses a hand over his mask, a hint of a grimace. Nausea, indeed.

“Can I get you something?” Gabriel offers, “I wouldn’t usually recommend the cafeteria’s tea, but peppermint usually helps an upset stomach.” He frowns, suddenly remembering Genji’s heavily restricted diet. “ _Can_ you drink peppermint tea?”

The briefest shake no. “Doctor Ziegler lets me have one cup a day, and I already had one. I had check ups today, and I can’t have anything to eat or drink afterwards, so I didn’t want to waste it.” He puts an elbow on the table, the other arm curling around his middle. “Rearranging organs to check that everything is in working order can be quite disruptive on one’s digestive routine, I found out. My guts taste like dish cleaner.”

“Yuck.” Gabriel’s own guts give a nasty squeeze at the imagery.

“Yeah.” A pause, red eyes flitting from one corner to the other of the room. “You didn’t tell her.” Almost too quietly for Gabriel’s enhanced ears to pick it up.

Gabriel absently rips a corner of one of the leftover sugar packets and pours the tiny crystals into the cold coffee, just to have something to do with his hands while he processed the words. “Of course not. That was the deal, wasn’t it?”

He looks up, and Genji’s red pupils are fixated on him. It’s just slightly unnerving, reminiscent of _other_ red eyes, but he’s getting used to it.

“I don’t trust you. _I can’t_ trust you.”

Ouch. “I can’t blame you,” Gabriel admits out loud. He balls up the paper napkin and stuffs it in the mug, watching it soak up the sludgy dark liquid for a moment. “Overwatch keeps promising things and whenever it delivers, they come with a new price tag attached, don’t they?”

Genji doesn’t say anything to that, but Gabriel isn’t really expecting an answer. He leans a little over the table, lowering his voice. “As long as you do your job, I don’t care if you trust Overwatch or not, but keep this in mind: Gabriel Reyes _always_ keeps his word.” He gets up and grabs his tray, ready to leave. “It probably doesn’t mean anything to you right now, but you can trust me.”

He walks away, not looking back until he disposed of his tray. When he finally glances back at the table, he expects to find the ninja still seated, but Genji is gone.

A sharp shard of ice lodges firmly in Gabriel’s gut.

III.

Despite everything, Genji starts trusting him; he stops sneaking around and is more relaxed around him. He’s still as feral as an alley cat, but everything works as well as it always has, their teamwork slick as oil as they were sent on more and more recog missions, the ninja and the cowboy at Gabriel’s sides like a well lubricated pair of shotguns.

Most of the time, at least.

“Where the _hell_ are you?” Gabriel hisses in the comms. A soft chime goes off in his left earpiece, signaling him that Ares has successfully hacked all the cameras, looping their feed for a few minutes while Gabriel clears the floor without being disturbed. He quickly scans the three rooms on the floor before pinging the comms again, slotting himself in a corner on the southern wall, near a window. “I told you to give me regular updates, you're getting on my nerves.”

A distorted whistle filters through the earpiece, deafening and annoying. “ _Ooh, if you’re this feisty while I’m getting on your nerves I can't wait to see you later when I’ll be getting on your-”_

“Don’t finish that sentence, McCree,” Gabriel interrupts him, irritated.

“ _Why, what you gonna do, spank me?”_

Gabriel pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers and carefully doesn't sigh. This is what he gets for allowing chatter on the comms on a regular basis; Jesse’s bullshit is just getting worse and worse. He used to shit his pants every time Gabriel looked at him, when did he started sassing him like that? “You’ll be scrubbing toilets with a toothbrush for the rest of your days, if you keep going like that. Did you go off on your own _again,_ after I explicitly told you not to?”

“ _I scanned the area before going in, commander._ ”

Great, so the ninja is on it, too. “Fine. Let’s pretend this is not near gross insubordination, we’re behind schedule. Now tell me. _Where_. Are you.”

" _Southern warehouse, bottom floor, going up. Genji climbed the building and is makin’ his way down_ ,” Jesse drawls, his voice slightly more professional than earlier. “ _I haven't found anything here, so far. You sure the tip was legit? Where is Morrison getting the intel, anyway?”_ There is a noise of spitting, and Gabriel grimaces.

“Don't worry about Morrison doing his job, worry about doing _yours_.”

“ _I found something_ ,” Genji’s quiet voice interrupts them. “ _It’s an unmarked box like the others, but it's warmer than the surrounding ones.”_

Gabriel frowns. “Energy signature?”

A frustrated hiss. “ _Unclear. It looks a little like the one from Stockholm that I have on file, though I can plug in, run a diagnostic on it and try to identify it_ — _”_

“No, don’t touch it, it might be dangerous,” Gabriel stops him. “We have tech for that. I’m coming over there, don’t move.”

He leans against the window; he can see the southern warehouse from there, and the metallic fire escape climbing up the side of the building. He pulls up a blueprint on his holoreader to check Genji's position on the third floor.

Breathing in, Gabriel holsters the guns at the small of his back, opens the window and climbed out. It's a twenty-five meters jump, give or take, and he has a clear line of sight to the fire escape. He knows he can do it; he’s done it before, multiple times in fact, but it’s novel enough he still freaks out. He breathes out, and wills himself to cross the distance.

He stumbles, clutching at the metallic safety guard while his combat boots thunk against the platform, feet turning back to solid extremities just in time to catch his weight. He quickly checks himself over, clenching his jaw to steady himself before getting inside the building, still feeling shaken.

Fucking hell, that is never going to _not_ feel freaky. Even after the literal _thousands_ test runs he's done in the lab with the doc, he still can’t completely believe he can _actually_ teleport.

Ares beeps in his ear when Genji's locator comes into range. The ninja, red lights low and barely visible in the darkness, is curled like a hunting cat in front of a bunch of big wooden boxes, but he quickly unfurls in alarm when he hears Gabriel stepping closer, a handful of shuriken already pulled out in his hand, ready to attack.

Gabriel waves him off. “It’s me. Which one?”

Genji blinks at him, and makes the small lethal stars disappear back in his arm. He points at the corner of the pile. “That one. They all contain some kind of tech, as far as my sensors can tell, but this one feels... different.”

Gabriel hums and crouches down. There's a smell of lighter fluid and a certain quality of tobacco. He pulls a small scanner out of his pocket, launches the software and grimaces when the small screen lights up. “Well, the good news is that intel was mostly accurate. The bad news—”

“Is it a bomb?”

“Is it a bomb?” Genji asks, badly concealed tension in his voice.

"No. It was supposed to be, but it’s just a warning, I think.” He sighs and stands up, brushing inexistent dust off his tac pants. "Well, we’re done here.”

They scan the room one more time, making sure they haven’t missed anything, and they start making their way down the stairs.

Gabriel fiddles with the scanner, sending the data to Ares so he can compile them for Gérard; there’s a bad feeling brewing in his gut, but he knows that post-mission adrenaline usually fuels his paranoia, makes him unreliable. He needs to put it out of his mind, think about it later when he’s less worked up.

“McCree,” he says, clicking the comm on. “Ping Fio and tell them we’re on our way. See you at the extraction point.”

“ _Thank fuck, I’m sick already of this aimless rummaging,”_ Jesse mutters, logging off without waiting for permission. What a goddamn brat.

“I’ll have to check if I can actually put McCree on toilet-scrubbing duty,” he mutters.

“To be honest, I share McCree’s sentiment on the mission,” Genji says behind him. “Would I end up on toilet-scrubbing duty too?”

Gabriel blinks. He didn’t expect Genji’s humorous tone. “Why not? There are a lot of toilets in need of a scrub back on base,” he says with a grin.

“But I was the one finding the mark. Shouldn’t I be rewarded instead?”

“Just because you found a box? I don’t know— but a reward system is not a bad idea. One point for every smartass remark: the first who gets to five points wins a week of household chores.”

“I think I’ll pass, thank you.” Genji’s polite and clipped tone makes Gabriel laugh.

They reach the bottom of the stairs and clear the ground floor before approaching the exit. Nothing moves outside; quietly they cross the parking lot in front of the building and start towards the extraction point, moving through the patch of trees that surrounds the area.

“Kidding aside, it’s a good thing we had you on the team. We really need more agents with your kind of skill set on the field.”

A small noise like a burst of static comes from Genji. “That’s high praise coming from you _,_ commander, but you haven't seen anything of my _skill set_ , yet.”

Gabriel can’t help but bark an incredulous laughter at the downright _saucy_ tone Genji has used on the word. “You and Jesse will be the death of me,” he mutters, shaking his head. But two can play that game. “Praise, you said? You into that?”

“You couldn't handle half of the things I’m into,” Genji shoots back, but his voice sounds different, pitched low and velvety-coarse, like a calloused palm caressing down his neck.

Gabriel can’t put his finger on it. He doesn't know what to say. He keeps walking.

Fio has already started the take-off operations when they reach the ship; before leaving the cover of the trees, Gabriel turns to face Genji. “I’ll try anything once,” he says, quiet and careful.

Genji’s eyes shine red and unnatural against the deep green of the surrounding backdrop.

IV.

Pain wakes Gabriel in the middle of the night on the third day of a practice run. He mentally curses and clenches his teeth around the fabric of his pillow so hard it feels them creak. He can do nothing else but roll over and wait it out.

The sickness, the ache, that weird feeling of disconnection between himself and his own body— it’s like being in SEP again. He can’t believe he accepted to go through that kind of shit _again_. He hopes Moira knows what she's doing. He hopes—

He doesn’t let himself regret it.

It’s quiet. The dark shapes of his men sleeping on the cots around him are still; nobody’s awake, and he’s glad for that. He still wants them to be well rested, even though they’re not risking their lives on a mission later in the day. There’s still one day left before they can go back to base.

His body slowly stops cramping. He breathes out and rolls over again, trying to get comfortable on the shitty camp bed.

Twin red lights stare up at him in the darkness.

He’s up before he can think about it, gun in hand—

( _and the gun literally materialised under his fingers, like smoke solidifying out of a nightmare_ )

—and only years of training stop him from pulling the trigger, from unloading a shotgun shell in the forehead of one Genji Shimada, staring up at him where he’s curled up on the floor with his back against the wall.

Gabriel raises the gun's muzzle up and away with a shaky breath, checks the secure and drops it behind his cot. “Jesus _Christ_ , Genji,” he hisses, wiping sweat from his neck with the back of his hand. “I could’ve blown your face _off!”_

The ninja chuckles, dry and manic. “Did you think I was an omnic? Coming to get you in your sleep?”

The bare self-loathe dripping from Genji's voice almost made Gabriel recoil. “Why the hell aren’t you in your cot?”

Dumb question. Genji screamed everyone awake two nights ago. Gabriel found him backed up in a corner, unaware of his surroundings, panicking. He hasn't been sleeping since, unwilling to give a repeat performance.

In the poor lighting, Gabriel can see how exhausted and twitchy he looks. He’s not about to tell him to go to sleep; he's been there. Nightmares don’t let you rest when they try to take over your mind as completely as that. It’s either laying awake, shaking through sleep deprivation and hallucinations, or—

Gabriel sighs. He slides off the cot and sits on the floor next to Genji with his back against the wall, telegraphing every movement so he doesn’t spook him; then he pulls unceremoniously Genji against him, wrapping his arms around his waist.

He's tired; he doesn't think about boundaries until he feels the ninja’s body go as rigid as a board in his lap— but then Genji relaxes, curling up on his side like a cat seeking warmth, and the apology dies on Gabriel's tongue. His sleepy mind just registers how heavy Genji feels; the hard edges of his armor push at uncomfortable angles in Gabriel’s chest and neck, and the fibers on his sides feel stringy and tough like kevlar, but the way they expand and contract under Gabriel's fingers every time he breathes feels so— organic. Alive. Familiar.

Genji’s hand closes around a piece of Gabriel's shirt, just below his heart, and he falls asleep.

Gabriel doesn’t.

  
by [collophora.](http://collophora.tumblr.com/post/182066388821/and-isnt-it-something-seeing-it-on-his-mouth)

V.

The rec room on the top floor has never been so crowded: Weldt, Richmond and Coester have claimed the sofa in front of the holovid, but are furiously discussing something instead of watching the movie playing; Jesse is conked out on the loveseat, his hat askew over his face; even Genji is there, quietly filling the electric kettle at sink. Gabriel blinks and check the hour on his phone: it’s 3am. It’s pretty normal for him to be at the rec room at this hour, especially on paperwork-heavy evenings like this, but the brats should be in bed already.

“What the hell are you doing still up?” he asks, walking towards the small fridge beside the sink. “Don’t you rascals have training in the morning?”

“Paid leave,” Weldt answers immediately, their thin lips quirking up in an impertinent smile. “We’re leaving tomorrow at twelve hundred, but we need to show up at least two hours earlier so Athena cleared our schedules.”

“Lucky bastards,” Gabriel comments, half-heartedly. He doesn’t even remember when it was the last time he’d been on leave. He and Jack sort of gave up on that kind of thing when they’d been promoted.

He sighs and opens the the fridge, perusing the selection of alcohol that survived the recruits’ raid. Not that he can get decently drunk on any commercial brand, but often the taste is enough to trick his brain into relaxation. He picks one at random and walks back to the loveseat, pushing Jesse’s long legs out of the way so he can sit down.

Genji basically _materializes_ on the armrest next to him just as he leans back on the backrest, mug of piping hot tea in his right hand, almost making him spill the beer he was trying to open without making a mess.

Fuck, Gabriel’s tired — he didn't even hear him move across the room.

It’s pretty late for the ninja, too; Gabriel studies him with a quick glance, but he can’t read anything in his posture: he’s bundled up in his usual black hoodie with the washed out Blackwatch logo on the breast, he's tucked the cables coming out of his head inside its neckline, and he’s got a black scarf wrapped loosely around the lower part of his face.

“Enough! I won't stand for this slander! _Boss!_ ” Gabriel is forced to look away from the ninja at Koester's sudden callout. The agent turn towards him, seems to lose momentum when he notices Genji perched next to him, but his hesitation is very short lived, caught in the middle of his righteous outrage. “Please, tell Riley that the world didn't need _another_ remake of _Jurassic Park_ , of all things.”

The affirmation is so random it actually catches Gabriel off guard. He snorts a laughter. “Strange of you to ask for _my_ opinion, when you have Weldt sitting _right there_ — I thought _they_ were the cinema nut, not you.”

“Unfortunately _Cassidy has never seen the original trilogy_ , which is just _outrageous_ —”

“I don’t care about dinosaurs! It's not a crime! Life is too short to watch movies I don't care about!” Weldt makes a comically wide gesture with their arm, and the dark liquid in the glass they’re holding sloshes dangerously close to the rim, narrowly avoiding spilling.

“You almost _threw me off a plane_ when I told you I didn’t know who Orson Welles was—”

“That's because Wells is the _actual basics_ of the history of cinema, you ignorant dumbass—”

“Oh my God, Ezra, shut up!” Richmond interrupts them. “I just asked if you guys wanted to catch a movie when we went back to the civilized world! If Cassidy doesn’t like dinosaurs and you hate _Jurassic Park_ remakes we can see something else, it’s not that deep, for fuck’s sake!”

The other two stop talking and deflate, twin sheepish expressions on their faces. “Sorry, Riley,” they chorus.

“And apologize to the boss.”

“Sorry boss,” they chorus again, while Richmond rewinds the part of the movie they missed.

“And this is why Richmond gets to be in charge when McCree and I are not around," Gabriel comments, snickering quietly at their antics, taking a sip of beer.

He carefully doesn't react when he feels Genji press closer against his shoulder. That has been happening a lot, lately; since that night, the ninja has gone back following him around like a shadow but it's— different. Before, it felt like a wounded animal that couldn't stand of letting the predator out of his line of sight, just in case of an attack; but now Gabriel is reminded of a feral cat looking for warmth inside recently parked cars. He acknowledges him, casually sliding his hand behind his back. Even through the thick fabric, he feels too warm to the touch.

“How can Jesse sleep with all this noise?” Genji whispers, his voice more like a quiet vibrato under Gabriel’s fingertips than actual sound waves, as the guys start bickering again.

“They say the dumb always sleep soundly,” Gabriel says, jokingly. “No, I actually think the noise—the voices of people he trusts are what put him to sleep. It’s the quiet that gives him trouble sleeping.”

“I see.” He starts lifting the bottom of the scarf that covers his face and brings the tea closer to his mouth, but he hesitates; he leans forward and puts the still full mug on the floor next to the loveseat. “I think I was like that, too.”

He doesn't elaborate; he just stretches, pulling his arms upwards and re-tucking a stray cable back into the neck of his hoodie before relaxing back. Gabriel doesn’t move his hand; the fabric of the hoodie slips from under it, and he finds himself touching his bare, armor-less back.

His spin feels unnervingly exposed, hard hot bolts against Gabriel's palm; the warm, too-smooth artificial fiber around it almost feel wet to the touch. It makes it feel like he’s been skinned alive. Gabriel can’t help moving his fingertips in small circles against the strange texture. He wonders if Genji can feel it; if he can, he doesn't say anything.

It’s odd. A cold beer in his hand, a warm spine under the other, the soft snoring of someone feeling safe enough to sleep next to him, and a bunch of colleagues fighting about inane shit late at night. The paperwork, the conspiracies and the pain—inseparable companion of most of his sleepless nights, these days—even the pain can’t touch him now.

Gabriel can't remember when it was the last time he felt himself so at peace.

VI.

Then Rialto happens.

And everything goes to _shit_. 


	3. Face the Consequences

Unshaven, pale and with those deep, dark shadows under his eyes, Gabriel looks more dead than alive; he stares at himself in the mirror, rubbing a hand down his face, trying and failing to ignore the nanites pouring out of his skin, curling around his shoulders like smoke.

The perks of being at the top of the chain of command include having private quarters with an ensuite bathroom; the perfect location to enjoy the luxury of losing his mind, in the privacy of his room. As he lathers up his face, he wonders if Jack ever happens to feel like that, but the rest of that train of thought gets flushed down the strain, with suds and bits of stubble.

He doesn’t want to think about Jack. His voice creaking and rasping around every vowel as he tried not to yell in his face—mostly failing—still resonates in his chest.

Ungrateful dickhead. After all Gabriel has done for him, all the messes he looked into for him, all the fucks up he covered up—

He’s being unfair. He knows how too often things like that are out of Jack’s control.

Gabriel shuts the water, listens to the sink gurgle as he dries his face.

Control has always been his job; to create choices where none were available, to keep his sleeves full of aces when they were dealt a bad hand, to capture pieces when the enemy started crawling too close across the board— he was always meant to be the Queen of this game of chess.

Rialto reminded him that he’s just a crownless king.

He pulls the towel away from his face, and catches another glimpse of himself in the mirror. God, he looks old. An ugly sound bubbles up his throat, too hoarse to be a laughter or even a sob, at the irony of it all. He got what he wanted, didn’t he?

He’s been so stupid. So blind. He should’ve seen it earlier.

Jack was angry. Jesse was angry too, scared and confused, a loud foil to Genji’s quiet, unwavering focus. But Moira was happy.

He was blind, and then an assassin teleporting away in a cloud of smoke opened his eyes.

The nanites feel like they’re eating away at his skin, but when he touches to check everything feels normal. He stares at his fingers for a long moment. He can’t think about this now. He’s too tired, too off kilter.

He sheds clothes in the dark, piling them on the foot of the bed and lies down with a groan. His body aches. The nanites leaving his body, slipping from his control, are an itch he cannot scratch. He resigns himself to a long night of tossing and turning.

He dreams of red lights and screams and flesh melting off his bones. He wakes up with his body full of pin and needles, sweating and shivering, disoriented— there’s a noise in the room.

Knocking.

“You have a visitor, Commander Reyes,” Ares’ voice points out.

“No shit,” Gabriel mutters, sitting up. The red numbers on the wall read 01:54.

Huh. He hasn’t realised it was that early, but still, who the fuck—

“Visitor identified as Genji Shimada, callname: Genji, ID 2741—”

“Fuck,” Gabriel whispers, dread pooling in his gut. He suddenly feels like he’s been doused in ice water. “Lights, Ares, on low.”

He gets out of bed, blinking as his eyes adjust to the soft light. He pulls his sweats and a hoodie on; he wills the itching to please, stop, before going to open the door.

Genji is grinning, a hint of teeth glinting in the cold light of the hallway; that’s the first thing Gabriel notices about him, sharp and fake, the shadow of a weapon once handled with extreme ease now rusty and dull with disuse. He’s not wearing a mask or a scarf; his hoodie is unzipped halfway down his torso, highlighting the pale flesh column of his neck, the dip between his pecs. No headpiece, either; his hairline is a crisscross of thin scars. Some look uncomfortably fresh.

He smells like subpar whiskey, and the cheap alcohol tickles Gabriel’s sensitive nose, but there’s something else under it that he can’t place.

Their eyes meet and Genji’s smile grows larger, though his eyes are still somewhat cold.

“Good evening, commander,” he slurs. “Can I come in?”

Gabriel considers yelling at him for his poor conduct, considers turning him away because he’s not in the shape to deal with him, but he doesn’t. He opens the door all the way and steps back, inviting him in without a word.

He walks back into his room, for no other reason than he’s spent too much time in his living-room-turned-into-office-away-from-the-office to want to spend more time in there; Genji moves a few uncertain steps inside the door, eyes wandering around the room, and lets out a weak whistle. “How forward of you, commander,” he sneers, heavily leaning against the closest wall.

Gabriel drops his weight on the bed, carefully breathing around the residual ache from his nightmares. “Wanna tell me what you doing up, drunk off your ass and knocking at my door in the middle of the night?”

“Drunk is a strong word,” Genji enunciates slowly, petulantly. “I merely took a sip from McCree’s stash— I’m sure he won’t miss it. I just needed—how do you say? A little liquid courage for tonight.”

He removes himself from the wall, walks closer, stumbles on his own feet. Gabriel catches him by the artificial arm before he can faceplant on the carpet. Genji just laughs, that strange static-like sound even more uncanny coming from his uncovered mouth. “Thank you."

He sits next to Gabriel. He's very close and very warm. “I used to be so good at this,” he murmurs in a low voice, gesturing.

“This?”

“Yeah. I used to go to bars—you know. Relax.” He laughs again. “It drove him crazy,” he stage-whispers.

“Whom?” Gabriel asks, but Genji just frowns and keeps talking right over him.

“ I was always nice to those who were nice to me. It was mutual, you know?” His metal hand plays with the zipper of his hoodie, pulling it up and down.

Gabriel suddenly realises how close they are when Genji looks up and his red eyes are right there. “You were really nice to me, these past weeks, commander.” Genji says, and his flesh hand is on Gabriel's inner thigh, while the other is unzipping the hoodie all the way. “It’s only fair—”

“Stop,” Gabriel snaps. “Just, stop.”

He knows there’s something off about the situation—Genji sounds so unlike himself it almost makes him physically recoil away from him—but his brain feels stuck. A voice in the back of his head is screaming at him careful about what you wish. His head spins, he pinches the bridge of his nose trying to ward off the first signs of headache that pulse behind his eyes.

He would be lying if he said that he didn’t think about it. He’s been thinking about Genji way too often, lately, and so often he forced himself to put him out of his mind—all the while, treasuring the nights they slept pressed one against another, the trust Genji showed him when he sat across him to drink his daily cup of tea with his scarf off, the late nights in the rec room spent scribbling his signature on paperwork while Genji looked on. He never let himself wonder about Genji in his bed, too used to ignore what i can’t have.

For a brief moment, he feels the urge to pinch himself, wondering if he’s still dreaming, if his subconscious is taunting him with this caricature of a seduction to humiliate him—a punishment, though he doesn’t even know for what; for being inappropriate with a subordinate, for being too coward to concede himself a comforting sexual fantasy, or for his shortcomings, again?

“Commander?” Genji’s uncertain voice brings him back to reality. “Are you okay?”

The fake smile from before is gone from his face, his eyes are focused on Gabriel, worry etched into them. He sounds crystal clear, not a trace of slurring in his synthesized voice.

Gabriel mentally shakes himself—he’s regretting letting him in, now—and carefully pushes Genji away, forcing him to scoot over a little so he can take a look at him. “What game are we playing, Genji?”

The ninja licks the scar on his lip. He looks down at himself, at his naked chest. “I don’t know. I thought—” he stops talking again to worry at his lip, with his teeth this time. “I thought I remembered how it goes, but I guess I’m out of practice.” He sounds ashamed. Defeated.

As always when he’s talking to Genji, there’s something Gabriel can’t put his finger on.

“Talk me through it.”

Genji gives him a flat, unreadable look, but then he just shrugs. “I tried to get drunk, but I couldn’t— my body wouldn’t let me.”

Gabriel finally places the mysterious smell from earlier: it’s vomit, faint and washed off, weirdly inorganic-smelling, but still there. “So you decided to pretend?”

“People feel less guilty about taking advantage, if they think you won’t remember in the morning. Especially if they're high, too,” Genji says, matter-of-factly. “I thought about taking a bottle with me, but that kind of liquor is useless to you, isn’t it?”

He’s been observing his drinking habits in the rec room, then. Gabriel doesn't confirm nor deny.

“Did you really think I was going to— take advantage of you if I thought you drunk enough?”

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Genji repeats.

“You were thinking it usually works,” Gabriel muses aloud.

A picture is taking form in his mind. Genji Shimada used to be a handful of lines on a report, before Blackwatch. He was the younger spawn of a big, powerful family, raised to be a criminal and to have responsibilities that no one should ever have, let alone someone that young and impressionable. His brother had taken to the criminal life like a duck to water; Gabriel had been reading about Genji Shimada’s rebellious streak, about the drinking, the partying and the whoring, and had seen an asset for his intel work.

A pawn—turned into one of his knights; a broken assassin that came knocking at his door looking for something familiar, hiding himself behind a mask, a persona that he used to know so well to—to do what? To give himself an illusion of normalcy? To remind himself how it felt to be a living, breathing human being?

“It usually works,” Genji repeats after him. “It does relax me too, though.”

It sounds like sincere offer. Is he trying to give Gabriel an illusion of normalcy?

Gabriel clenches his jaw so hard he can almost feel his teeth groan under the pressure. Sometimes he wishes normalcy so hard it can taste it, he can’t deny it. There’s something about Genji that makes him want to put his hands on him, to cradle him against his body, just to feel him. There’s also that fleeting desire for them to bury themselves in each other until the world and the problems fall away, and

(he’s been there, he’s done that, he’s missed it and he's always felt like he never can have it again)

he wonders if Genji knows, if Gabriel has been more transparent than he ought to be.

Just because he wants to, it doesn’t mean he should.

“I’m your commanding officer. You understand that this could get really messy.”

“Nobody needs to know—”

“I’m sorry Genji, this isn’t happening.” Genji’s hand is still on the mattress between them. He touches it. “You're welcome to stay if you need someone to share the bed with— to sleep, that is.”

He feels the ninja’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t look up. He keeps caressing the back of his hand with his thumb. Genji pulls away and gets up; he listens to his quiet steps as he walks to the other side of the bed and slides under the covers, on the side Gabriel usually sleeps on.

“Turn the lights off, Ares,” he orders, quietly, slipping under the covers too. He wonders if his spot still retains warmth from earlier, from when his body was tossing and turning restlessly.

It’s dark. They’re tense. Sleep doesn’t come.

Gabriel is coiled tight with something similar to adrenaline. His senses feel too sharp; he’s hyper-aware of the too-warm body laying a few inches from him. They shared sleeping arrangements before, but this seems so much different—maybe because they're in Gabriel’s bed.

The urge to lean his ear against Genji’s back to hear the soft wheeze of his artificial lung, the slow beat of his heart, the rush of chemical flowing through synthetic fibers is so strong he’s dizzy with it—though maybe it’s just exhaustion catching up with him—

(the itch is back, the crawling sensation of his skin crumbling off his body)

but he just wants to hear the sound of Genji being human; feeling like the biggest hypocrite, Gabriel reaches out, his hand craving warmth almost with a mind of its own.

Genji’s back is tense and stiff under his fingertips; he’s not asleep, either.

“Can’t sleep either?”

Gabriel swallows. He feels hollow. “That's how it goes, sometimes.”

A quiet snort. Silence. A heavy sigh. “Maybe a warm shower could help. Make us sleep.”

A veil of shapeless, meaningless words over the ugly truth. Gabriel said no once because he didn’t take advantage; he said no twice because it was the right thing to do. He closes his eyes shut until small stars explode behind his eyelids. He’s not sure if he can tell him no for a third time.

A rustle of sheets and the clothes piled on the bed falling to the floor, a too-warm hand finding his in the darkness. “Come on.” Gabriel follows him in the bathroom like in a dream.

They both see too well in the dark, but Gabriel still turns the bathroom’s cold neon lights on. He doesn't look at Genji while they strip, perfunctory like they're about to get in the communal showers after training; he turns the water on the hottest setting he can stand and gets under the stream. Genji waits for the glass to fog up before following him in the stall.

They look at each other for a moment, as if studying the opponent before sparring.

Dense with muscle and with all those cybernetic augmentations of his, Gabriel wouldn’t define Genji a small guy, but he often forgets how much smaller he is in comparison to himself. He has never seen him without his armor on; he can’t figure out if he expected more or less flesh than he’s seeing. The red synthetic fibers on his stomach makes it look like he’s been flayed alive, but then it’s all scarred skin, rapidly flushing under the scalding water, from below the waist down to just before his knees, up to his right side and over his shoulder. There’s so much, he doesn’t know where to touch.

Genji's eyes look much darker in the stark light, the red contacts swallowed up by the black of his pupils; his lips move around a word Gabriel doesn't catch as they run up and down his body. That's all the warning he gets before Genji’s hands start mapping his torso like he's been starving for it, cupping his chest and caressing down his abdomen, brushing against the dark curls near his groin, touching his stirring dick. He’s cautious, but not shy, which Gabriel finds charming.

“Can I suck you off?” Genji chokes out, and he's already kneeling, his metallic kneecaps hitting the shower plate with a loud, asymmetrical cli-click.

“Knock yourself out.”

The first thing that comes to Gabriel’s mind when the head of his dick touches the smooth inside of Genji's mouth is that he didn’t expect the dark polymer to feel that nice. Gabriel’s tongue feels numb, his windpipe tight. He almost can’t focus on what is happening. A gasp escapes his throat. His knees feel melty. How long has it been, since the last time? He can’t remember—he doesn’t really want to remember.

He feels like the most selfish asshole in the universe.

But Genji doesn't seem to mind, entirely absorbed in his task. When Gabriel reaches out to brush a thumb over his cheek, he leans in the touch like a cat, but he doesn’t stop sucking him down, the fingers of his flesh hand wrapped around the root of his dick.

A smile pulls at Gabriel’s cheek; unwavering focus, like when he's on a mission.

The ninja goes willingly, when Gabriel cradles his face in both hands and moves him a little around so he can push deeper, and he doesn’t pull away even when he chokes on it. His eyes are closed and his neck relaxed, while he lets his commander manhandle him.

Scalding water flows down the planes of Gabriel’s back; white-hot pleasure shoots up his spine. He feels like he’s blowing apart; he leans against the shower wall, and holds on.

When he finally looks down, Genji is discreetly spitting a mouthful in the strain and he sitting back on his calves, a hand rubbing at his jaw. He’s breathing heavily and he looks unsure and unfocused all of a sudden. Gabriel's semen looks obscene splattered all over the black material and his lower lip where it dribbled out of his mouth.

Gabriel crouches, slowly, and gently wipes it off with his fingers. Genji finally looks up at him, startled; his pupils are still blown wide and black, his tongue flicks against the usual scar. Nervous.

Words get stuck in Gabriel’s throat. He means to say something, something reassuring maybe, but he can’t recall what he had in mind. He just leans in and kisses him, open-mouthed and dirty. Genji kisses him back, his hands finding and clinging to his shoulders, and Gabriel tastes desperation and his own spent on his tongue. There are wafts of black smoke raising from his skin; Genji’s wet palms smooth them away along his forearms as if they were the sleeves of a silky shirt, and doesn’t stop kissing him.

They stumble out of the shower with their mouths still exploring each other, hands roaming everywhere, and Gabriel finds out that Genji’s skin is soft even with all those scars, that his ass is firm and supple in his grasp, and that he’s wet, wet and sensitive—

—that he still stiffens in alarm when he catches a glimpse of the mirror.

Genji immediately tries to turn away, but Gabriel catches his wrists. “Please,” he begs. “Please.”

He stops. His eyes are closed, his body is tense. He’s sweating fear, but he could free himself and flee, if he really wanted; Gabriel isn’t really holding him that firmly, he isn’t trapping him.

“Open your eyes, Genji,” Gabriel tells him gently, soft as velvet, pushing him closer to the mirror until his belly is against the marble counter. “This is who you are now. This is who we are.”

The smoke surrounds them. His limbs are starting to feel numb with it. Gabriel watches the darkest strands mingle with the white steam like fussy thunderclouds.

Genji's eyes crack open, a sliver of red in the darkening room.

“That’s it, dear,” Gabriel murmurs. He props him against the mirror, bending him over the counter, and kneels on the cold floor. “Keep watching.”

He kisses down his crack, pressing his tongue against his ass, spreading his wet, sensitive folds before licking into them, rubbing his dick with his fingers. Genji chokes on a sob and comes almost right away, his knees buckling and his metal hand clutching at the counter so hard it cracks.

Gabriel catches him before he can slip on the floor, and shushes him. “I got you, Genji—I got you,” he says, picking him up. He has him sit on the ruined counter, and holds him until he stops shaking, kissing the soft skin under his ear, the hard nubs of metal protruding out of his skin.

“Again,” Genji begs, palm smacking against his moist shoulder. “Again.”

How can he refuse him? Gabriel makes him come with his fingers, with his dick when he gets hard again, with his mouth, over and over, until it’s over-sensitivity making Genji scream, and not pleasure. It feels so good, being in control like that.

Gabriel had forgotten how powerful sex could make him feel.

Afterwards, Genji is too tired to even stand on his feet. Gabriel tucks them both in bed, naked and covered in fluids. The ninja is unconscious before his head can touch the pillow, but he still grabs one of Gabriel’s fingers in his sleep, like a child.

Gabriel watches him slumber, feeling like a creep but too tired to care. Genji is so young. He is Gabriel’s age when he put his signature on the government issued top secret module that changed his life. They’re not that different. They have been at war, they both sacrificed their humanity to a most human desire—to walk again; to grow old. A normal life—and they ended up like this.

Anomalies. Freaks. Weapons.

He wraps around the ninja's sleeping form, and he listens to him breathe. Maybe there was still hope for them; they were still alive, after all. Clinging to their sorry existences, but clinging nevertheless. At the end of the day, they were still human, somewhere deep inside.

Gabriel’s dreams, that night like always, are full of smoke and melting bones.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [dreamwidth](https://somewhatclear.dreamwidth.org) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/somewhatclear)


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